Sense memory from February 2010
When: February 2010
Where: Goldmyer Hot Springs
With: my partner & Brian
What: backpacking up the Dutch Miller Gap from the Middle Fork Snoqualmie trailhead for an overnight at the hot springs
Accompaniment: Ships and Clouds by Jim Noir
Goldmyer Hot Springs is a hidden gem in the central Cascades, a petite three-pool hotsprings in the midst of the forest beside a waterfall. To protect the springs and experience, they only allow twenty visitors a day. You leave a voicemail with the dates you want, and they call you back if twenty people haven’t beat you to it. (It appears they still have that system eleven years later 😂 but are soon switching to an online lottery.)
Normally, it’s a four-and-a-half mile hike* along a forest service road, but part of the road was washed out the year we went. We slogged ten miles up the mostly-forested dirt road to reach the hot springs. It was my first backpack trip after starting a desk job, and my body could tell. I was exhausted by the time we reached the campground, ready to collapse into the springs for a long soothing soak.
Then the caretakers revealed that the hot springs themselves were another half mile up the hill.
😶
You. Can’t. Be. Serious.
Begrudging every step, I hauled my ass up the steep trail. After hiking ten miles to the damn hot springs, I couldn’t not hike the eleventh. Fortunately, the hot springs proved to be as magical as advertised. We even went back the next year.
(*Pro tip, if you ever go: mountain bike.)
When did you realize you weren’t quite there yet?
Share your story in the comments!
Every Spring in the garden. After a full full day and the last groan I turn around there’s just one more thing to trim, plant, re-plant, mulch etc! Luckily, the dark comes early so the day ends.
Funny, by summer I don’t remember any back aches!!!
Ha, I hear you! Right now I’m appreciating my fall back pain planting bulbs 😉